


The Mirror at Delphi

by Oceans_Away



Category: Lore Olympus (Webcomic)
Genre: Boys night out in the mortal realm, Dreams, Gen, Hades is very tired, Light Angst, Past Infidelity, Poseidon is a good lad, Prophecy, Swearing, Three Kings, Visions, Zeus and his poor judgement, what could possibly go wrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:15:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24813661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oceans_Away/pseuds/Oceans_Away
Summary: Hades, Zeus and Poseidon visit the Oracle at Delphi in the mortal realm. The evening starts as a usual lads' night, but the Oracle turns out to be more than they bargained for. Hades is faced with his feelings, Zeus is faced with his mistakes, and Poseidon is... also there? He has a pretty good night, honestly.(CW: The story takes place in a temple of Apollo, with nods to his character, but he isn't present)
Relationships: Hades/Persephone (Lore Olympus)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 123





	1. Pilgrimage Stage One: Journeying to the Temple

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zeus and Poseidon show up at Hades' home with a plan for a boys' night out in the mortal realm. Hades is about as pleased as you'd expect.

Hades was tired. It was the deep sort of tired. The in-your-bones-and-blood tired. The wish-you-were-dead-but-that-wouldn’t-actually-get-you-out-of-the-Underworld tired. It was the Zeus-is-visiting tired. He took a draught of whiskey and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I don’t remember saying you could come round.”

Zeus’ cosmos-purple face emerged from behind the door of Hades’ liquor cabinet. “That’s why it’s called a surprise.” He selected a very expensive artisan ouzo and spun it in his palm as he sauntered over to the couch and collapsed onto it with a smug sigh. He put his feet up without taking off his shoes.

“I don’t like surprises.” Hades said blandly, eyeing his brother’s shiny, pointed boots. 

“Everyone likes surprises!” Poseidon spun around on a wheeled desk chair, Hades’ best dark rum already sloshing in his glass.

“There’s no such thing as something everyone likes.” Hades grumbled. “Only things everyone is subjected to.”

“Like what?” Poseidon glugged the rum without letting the spice sit on his tongue. Hades had paid so much for that particular spice.

“Grief, sickness, ill fortune. Irritating, unannounced family visits.” Hades swilled the whiskey and sipped it through tight lips.

“Don’t give us the face.” Zeus pulled the stopper from the ouzo and splashed some into a shot glass like the cup of a foxglove, filling the room with sharp, clean aniseed. “If it wasn’t for us, you’d do nothing and no one.”

“You mean do nothing and have no one.”

“No, I don’t.”

In fairness, he sort of had a point. Zeus’ gatherings were how Hades and Hera had done most of their sneaking around. Hera flashed into Hades’ mind with the usual mixture of warmth and sadness that faded to itchy annoyance with his brother.

“Why are you here?”

“To cheer you up!” Poseidon piped, thrusting his glass towards Hades so the rum tossed up the side and almost spilled.

“I don’t need cheering up.” Hades said miserably.

“You always need cheering up.” Zeus relaxed back with his third shot and rested his head on his arm behind him. “It’s your default setting, your mean average mood.”

Wow, a math reference, Zeus was excelling himself. Hades stared straight ahead. “Then in the spirit of the gods’ duty to keep balance, leave me alone and let me default to the mean.”

“We can’t leave you alone to be sad!” Poseidon’s kelp-green eyes went large and wet. “And we have the perfect plan for you. What is our plan, Zeus?”

Zeus grinned his sly, crescent-moon grin. “Wine, women and song!”

“I’d rather have whiskey, dogs and silence.” Hades knocked back a rich, rye gulp.

“Boooooo!” Poseidon boomed at him, scooting closer on the chair’s wheels.

“Come on, Brother!” Zeus pressed, smacking his lips on shot number five. “You haven’t even let me tell you about the woman I have in mind.”

Hades’ mind washed pink and petalled. He blinked quickly and swallowed fiery whiskey.

“She’s a creature of unmatched beauty.” Zeus took on the tone of something between a wandering bard and an insurance salesman. “Infamous for mystical performances that induce wild, alluring visions.” 

“So it’s a strip club.”

“Better.”

“What’s better than a strip club?” Poseidon asked, on the edge of his seat.

“We’re going to see the greatest, sexiest sensation the mortal realm has ever had.” Zeus flourished his fingers like a magician, a dark sparkle in his eyes. Poseidon made a giddy, intrigued noise that spurred Zeus on. “A woman of mystery and fortune, of veils and firelight. A woman who does private shows for selective clients, in a venue where the very ground you walk on can get you high.”

Hades was frowning flatly at Zeus, noting the vagueness in his language and the eagerness in his tone. “Why do I sense a pre-existing relationship?”

Zeus shrugged coyly and avoided his eye. “I'm a favourite among mortals, Brother, all of them have a relationship with me.” He looked back at Hades' unmoved frown. “But yes.”

“Ha! Nice.” Poseidon barked a laugh like a bubble popping in seaweed. 

Zeus ran his fingers through the ends of his fine hair, combing out the blue shadows from the large window. “It  _ was _ nice.” He said with theatrical wistfulness. “So nice, I might have given her something.”

“Bet you did.” Poseidon guffawed.

Hades felt the cold weight in his gut that he got when Zeus was about to drop stressful information. “Zeus, what did you do?”

Zeus twisted his hair around his finger and twizzled the shot glass in his other hand. “It's only a little thing.”

“Zeus…”

“She's an oracle now.”

Hades groaned heavily and collapsed back in his chair, clapping a hand over his eyes so he didn’t have to look at Zeus’ face. “Do the Fates know?” He sighed. “Because every time you piss them off, it’s me that has to smooth things over.”

"Still, nice change for your girls.” Poseidon grinned like a shark. “Don't they normally get turned into cows?”

Zeus glared. “That was one time!”

Hades groaned again and stood to pull the knots out of his intestines. He strode past Poseidon to the window and looked unseeing into the expanse of obsidian and piercing neon blue. He could feel his teeth in his mouth as he spoke. “If you're going to treat Hera like this, you could at least make less of an exhibition of it. Giving your mistresses temples is a new low.”

“I didn't give her a temple.” Zeus insisted defensively.

Hades looked around with raised eyebrows.

“I got Apollo to give her one.”

Hades clenched his jaw.

“It’s untraceable.” Zeus grinned and moved his pinched fingers in a straight horizontal, as if drawing a line under his plan.

Hades gripped the dense bottom of the whiskey glass and felt his neck heat. “You have never done a single untraceable thing in your life.”

“Oh yeah?” Zeus poured more ouzo. “Poseidon never found out about the time I traded his collection of weird ships’ figureheads for a make-out session with that muse who’s big into sculpture.”

Poseidon perked up. “You said they were destroyed in a fire while I was away with the Attican navy!”

Zeus looked at him drily. “Underwater?”

Poseidon narrowed his eyes, visibly working out the odds.

Hades huffed in exasperation. “Look, Zeus, not that it's not fun watching you play with a new toy, but…”

Something else seemed to pop up in Poseidon’s calculations. “Wait, where’s this temple?”

Zeus mumbled to his fingernails.

“Where?” Poseidon leaned forward.

Zeus replied into his drink. “Delphi.”

Poseidon sat up, incredulous. “ _ Delphi? _ ”

Hades glanced at Poseidon, the rumble of ocean undertow was in his usually light voice. “You’re taking me to the temple that Apollo STOLE from me and Gaia?”

“You need to get past this, Poseidon.” Zeus drawled.

Poseidon stood, spiny fins popping out and fanning from his ears. “He SLAUGHTERED the sacred serpent guardians!” He brandished his rum glass like a cutlass. “They were fucking awesome snakes, Zeus! AND THEY WERE MY GOOD BABIES!”

Zeus looked levelly at Poseidon with indulgent patience, but a prickle entered his smooth speech. “Hey, if you want the temple space, then maybe you should make yourself a bit more popular. Apollo is a god of music and healing, they’re hot topics.”

“I am the ruler of the world’s most primal and mysterious force!” Poseidon railed.

Zeus stretched his arm along the couch back like a bored cat. “Obviously, and that’s super cool. But it’s a generational thing. Mortals these days are less into the eternal struggle against nature as a metaphor for the human condition, and more into parties and not dying of plague.”

Poseidon cast his hands into the air and Hades winced as rum showered his pale grey carpet. “Here we go with the fucking plague again.” Poseidon jabbed his finger at Zeus over his glass. “Doctor or not, Apollo is a dick and Delphi is mine. I’m not bringing him business.”

Zeus shot Poseidon a frustrated, daggering look. Then he breathed carefully and dark honey oozed into his voice. “Poseidon, this isn’t just some rock that you have a territorial squabble over. This is Delphi. The hot springs there simmer with transformative, intoxicating energy. The waters flow with dreams.”

Poseidon put his fist on his hip. “Those waters are only like that because I PUT THEM THERE.”

Zeus licked his teeth and sharpened. “But you know what I put there? The Oracle. Which is literally the most important thing about that place. So, more than it’s Apollo’s and more than it’s yours, Delphi is mine.” He smoothed again, making a sweeping, regal gesture. “And don’t I always provide for my brothers?” He looked into Poseidon’s eyes, his inky irises rimming with gold. “Don’t try to tell me that you’re not even a little bit intrigued by the Oracle. Imagine if a dancer could see into your soul, into your heart, draw out your deepest longings, your keenest curiosities, and weave them before your eyes into a luxuriant, immersive hallucination. Would you ever leave that club?” 

Hades had felt a glimmer of hope at Poseidon’s resistance. He watched warily as his middle brother’s face softened and his thick eyebrow floated up. Hades’ rolled his eyes at Poseidon’s response. “OK, fine. But Apollo owes me a snake.”

Zeus smiled. “I’ll take care of it.”

“Two snakes.”

“You can have as many snakes as you want, Buddy. Hades?” Zeus waved his shot glass at him.

Hades shrank a little against the window, hoping his monochrome suit and cerulean skin might camouflage him against the optical illusion of the Underworld. “I’m out.”

Zeus flared electric violet. “Come on!”

Hades shrugged brusquely. “Have fun without me.”

“While I admit that is a very realistic option,” Zeus said with narrowed eyes. “The whole trip was for your benefit.”

Hades bristled. He took a step into the room and put his glass down with a thunk on a black, sleek table. “I find that very hard to believe, since your plan for the evening is to drop in unannounced on one of your recent conquests.”

“You should be pleased that she’s a recent conquest.” Zeus smirked. “Consider her vetted.”

Hades’ mouth went hard. “That is callous.”

“She’s a mortal.”

“Then her existence is degraded enough, I have no intention of sullying it further.”

“The attention of the gods is an honour.” Thunder clouds were wisping into Zeus’ eyes.

“So said every bastard in history that ever forced his attentions on an innocent girl.” Hades could feel his tolerance fracturing. He often thought of himself as keeping his long life’s stockpile of rage and betrayal and disgust closed carefully in a glass orb in his chest. Whenever he felt those feelings stir, he imagined their transparent prison, letting them glimmer, but holding them confined. The glass had been feeling more and more fragile these past few days, and Zeus’ presence was like a teaspoon tapping it and making it sing in his ears.

“Every bastard in history wasn’t the fucking  _ king  _ of fucking  _ existence _ .” Zeus said heatedly, his hair starting to drift around his face and crackle with static.

“And. Yet.” Hades growled.

Poseidon was glancing between them, sneaking backwards towards the liquor cabinet.

“Hades.” Zeus stood, fighting to keep his tone reasonable. “Don’t be ungrateful. It’s an unpleasant colour on you.”

“Ah, yes.” Hades poured sarcasm into his voice like he was sloshing whiskey over ice cubes. “It would be such a great shame if the Lord of the Dead, the Unseen One, He Who Carries All Away, came off as ‘unpleasant’.”

“I don’t know why we bother with you!” Zeus snapped, lightning flashing in his pupils. “We give and give and you throw it back at us!”

“You!” Hades’ eyes answered with streaming red, ghosting into the air around his face like blood in water. “Have never given one scrap to another living soul!” His internal orb's glass thinned and a long fault-line split along it. “Everything you’ve ever done, every emotion you’ve ever had, has had at its root your want, your never-ending, world-consuming want! You beg and bully until you get your way, and you always have!”

The lights flickered in the room, Zeus standing out in the dark in a flash of silver, Hades’ silhouette looming against the eerie blaze of his domain. 

“Usually I’m exhausted enough to let it slide.” Hades forged on, his brother’s growing halo tinging ruby through his haze of anger. “But, wouldn’t you know it, this evening I'm so exhausted that I've actually gone beyond being able to feel it. And rather than waste that asset on one of your hare-brained missions to humiliate this family, I think I’ll put it towards finally telling you to fuck off! I will not be bullied by you. I will not be complicit in yet another litany of sins and minor tragedies. I will not go to this absurd magic show.” His broad shoulders hulked, corvine and menacing against the gleaming window. “No matter what you spin or shove, Brother, my answer is No. And that. Is. FINAL.”

*

The path up the hill to the temple at Delphi was littered with mortal pilgrims. Hades clucked his tongue bitterly and reflected without emotion on how they made a grim mirror of the procession of the damned trudging to the doom behind his gates, all hope and fear and resignation.

“You know what?” Poseidon said. "It’s kinda nice being back here." 

“Right?” Zeus clapped Poseidon on the back so hard that the strap of his chiton slid to the edge of his shoulder.

“Although, gee, it would have been nice for it to have been this busy in my day.” Poseidon said, tucking his long, newly sand-brown locks behind his ear.

“But in your day, you didn’t have  _ her. _ ” Zeus said, rubbing his hands together in excitement.

“I daresay the murderous serpent guardians didn’t help much either.” Hades said.

Poseidon sighed and shrugged. “Mortals just don’t want to put the effort into their worship anymore.”

“I don’t know if I’d say that.” Hades murmured. He looked back down the rise at the long, bustling queue. Mortals were crowding on the path, dust puffing and stones scrabbling under their sandals. Their faces shone with sweat and the musky scent of livestock hung in the air as they dragged offerings behind them, probably their best eatings for the season. Copper jingled in purses and charms on pendants were thumbed fervently. Hades could sense sickness and starvation and sexual desire, worries and wants all colliding in the atmosphere. He wondered how many would not make it home, how many had already died on the way here. And all to hear from the gods. Not even to be blessed, just to know they were there. Except him. He was the only one no one ever doubted existed. 

For all the dark undercurrents flowing over his senses, the people bubbled on the surface. They held hands, they laughed, they braided flowers into their hair. A masked poet scampered in and out of the wandering groups, reciting comedic verses and fawning over youths with flirtatious couplets. Local children sold sacred laurel branches from wooden trays around their necks. A herbalist hawked lotions and tonics in strong-smelling, gummed-up bottles. A song had broken out about 40 feet behind them and was bouncing up and down the road. Goats and sheep bleated and an ox lowed and tossed its head at the cobalt, cloudless sky. The white sun was gilding as the evening drew in. Hades subtly tugged his sleeve so his collar slipped wider, letting the warmth touch his skin. A small boy chased a loose chicken, his tunic tied around his head and his back ruddy from the heat of the afternoon.  _ Where’s your dad?  _ Hades wondered.  _ He shouldn’t have let you take your shirt off, you’ll burn, silly lamb. _

“...and her  _ legs _ !” Zeus’ gleeful voice grated on his ear and brought him out of his train of thought. His youngest brother was sculpting the shape of some woman or other, presumably the Oracle, in the air, cupping his palms around her numerous imaginary curves. “I can’t wait for you to see her, then you’ll get it.”

“She’s definitely a popular Oracle.” Poseidon said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a soothsayer get this much of a crowd. Is she actually any good?”

Zeus shrugged and gave Poseidon a look that said  _ I can't imagine any of us cares about that. _

“Just saying.” Poseidon said. “I always tried to give good answers.”

“You had one cookie-cutter answer.” Zeus smiled pointedly. “And it was ‘travel the ocean and find yourself.’”

“I stand by it.” Poseidon laughed.

“Well, anyway.” Zeus waved his hand imperiously. “Apollo doesn’t seem to mind chatting with her. I’m not sure exactly what he uses to brush them off, though.”

Hades looked pensively at the river of hopeful smiles and nervous ticks. He looked back at his brothers, chortling at the things they’d sneaked into visions over the years.

“I used to turn the snake entrails into diagrams of sex positions.”

“Oh, I remember that! Yeah, that was gold. I mostly just used to see what I could make them eat.”

Hades frowned at his mortal costume, at the folds of grey fabric like smoke on the embers of his uncharacteristically warm skin. “Are we bad people?” He asked softly. 

Zeus snorted. “Hades, your Underworld is showing.”

Hades looked away and swept his long hair off his neck, the tickle always took some getting used to. He looked up to the dramatic mountainside, gashed from old rock falls, green shrubs bursting out of the stone, like blood from the wounds. Hard grey, streaked with marigold, towered to the sky, carved with black crags and crevices, ancient, reminding Hades of his age. Encased in heavy rock, the temple shone like a seed being cut out of a rind. Stone columns laid out like a chessboard cast long fingers of shadow down the hill in the light from the low sun. The stark shadow and soaring backdrop gave the temple an ethereal, ominous look. For a moment, Hades couldn’t tell if he was rising towards it, or sinking into a cavern toothed by stalactites. He could smell laurel bushes, the fruity, rich scent at odds with the austere, moon-pale buildings.

“Now.” Zeus started walking backwards in front of the other two as they kept making their way up the hill, approaching the gateway. “The priests at Delphi are very protective of the Oracle, they don’t like her to waste her gifts, so they interview everyone visiting to see if their question is worth her time.”

Hades and Poseidon both blinked at him.

“OK.” Said Hades slowly. “How do you think they’re going to feel about: ‘Hey, Babe, sorry I didn’t call, how you been?’”

Zeus nodded. “Well, quite. So we need a good fake question that will get us in. Something mortals would ask.” He twisted a lock of chocolate brown hair around his finger. “So, what do mortals care about?”

Poseidon shrugged. Hades looked imploringly at the sky.

“Harvest?” Zeus suggested. “We can ask about harvest.”

Hades crossed his arms. “At this time of year?”

“Why? What time of year is harvest?”

“You’re a god of the sky. And society. And the weather.”

Zeus flicked that away. “Hera handles the emotional stuff and Thetis does the calendar.”

Poseidon bounded forward. “We can say we’re going on a sea voyage!” He looked intensely into the middle distance. “The sea is a cruel mistress.”

“I’ll tell Amphitrite you called her that.” Zeus snickered.

“She told me to call her that.” Poseidon winked.

Zeus laughed and pulled them back on track. “We can’t say a sea voyage, it’s really basic.”

“Not as basic as harvest.” Poseidon said.

“OK, not harvest.” Zeus conceded. “We need a really good question, we can’t get turned away.”

Hades rubbed his temples. “Couldn’t we just have arrived on the other side of this gate?”

“But then we don’t get the full experience.”

“Zeus, I get the full experience of awkward meetings and tiresome bureaucracy at work, I don’t need it now.”

The old woman in front of them in the queue tottered on her cane through the marble archway to the complex. 

Zeus put his hands on Hades’ shoulders. “It’s not about the interview, it’s about the cleansing ritual.”

Poseidon leaned in. “What’s the cleansing ritual?”

Zeus’ smile spread like spilled yogurt. He kept one hand on Hades and clapped Poseidon’s shoulder with the other. “You bathe in the Castalian Spring.”

“Oh, good.” Hades groaned. “Having a bath with my brothers. This night gets better and better.”

“The spring?” Poseidon balked. “That’s where Slithers and Toothy Ajax used to live!”

Zeus huffed out and ground his teeth. “Would you please give that a rest?”

“Next!”

A lean, leather-skinned priest in white robes and a laurel crown leaned over a wooden table just through the archway entrance.

Zeus whipped round to him then frantically back to the others. “Quick! What are we saying?”

Poseidon snapped his fingers rapidly with each idea. “Go sea voyage! Say we’re treasure-hunters! Or explorers! Or taking vengeance on a king who usurped our throne! Or rescuing our friends from sirens.” His gaze drifted. “Except we end up stuck on the island too, and then we spend the rest of eternity under the enchantment of beautiful sorceresses, using us for their pleasure and keeping us in a permanent state of dream-like, blissful submission…” His eyes glazed over. He blinked back to the present to see Zeus and Hades frowning at him. He cleared his throat. “What were we talking about?”

Zeus turned to the archway. “I’m going to say harvest.”

The arch was right on the crest of the hill, so as they stepped through it, the temple complex tipped into sight. It sprawled out across the plateau, long, rectangular buildings set at neat angles and topped with friezes - majestic lions, proud centaurs, racing chariots, dancing villagers, patients rising from bed, muses playing lyres and reading scrolls and peering at mathematical equipment. Hades raised an eyebrow at the austere male faces and demure, flattering female expressions in the carvings. Precise rows of columns and more tall, square archways marked out different areas. The ground was paved with clean, herb-brushed limestone, peppered with the fossils of long-dead sea creatures. Laurel bushes crowded the outside areas, thickening the sparse mountain air with perfume. Attendants in laurel crowns and crisp, white tunics stepped lightly in and out of the columns, like newborn deer tottering around the spindly legs of their mothers. They were lighting torches in bronze brackets on the columns. Viscous, orange light dripped from the fires, casting oily shadow into the Doric detailing. The sound of trickling water echoed among the stone. 

Zeus nudged Hades. He flinched and looked down at the plain, wooden table at the entrance, barring their way. Close up, the priest looked less lean and more scrawny. His cheeks were taut as drum skins and his hazel eyes were dull. He placed a slip of yellow papyrus in front of him from an orderly stack at his side, plucked a reed pen in his long, slender fingers, and gestured for them to sit. The brothers all took seats on stools across the table from him and exchanged uncertain glances. 

"What brings you to the Oracle today?" The priest said in a bored, rehearsed drone. 

"Harvest." Zeus replied confidently. 

The priest tilted his nutshell head. "At this time of year?" 

"Yes." 

Hades shot Zeus a look. 

"What’s your crop?" The priest asked, poising his pen over the slip. 

"Ummm…" Zeus scraped around hastily in his brain. "Wheat." 

"Wheat?" 

"Yup." 

The reed pen lifted away from the papyrus. "Gentlemen, if you’re here to talk about wheat at the end of Spring, I can answer your questions right now." 

"Oh!" Zeus coughed hurriedly. "You thought I said wheat! What I actually said was…" 

"Sirens!" Poseidon craned across the table to block Zeus from view. 

The priest dropped his pen, startled. It clattered on the dry wood. "Sirens?" 

"We need to go and find some sirens." Poseidon announced with a large, slippery smile. 

"Why?" 

"They kidnapped our friends." 

"Then, I’m sorry for your friends." The priest retrieved his pen and scratched a note. 

Poseidon glanced at his economical, official handwriting. "We’re going to rescue them." 

The priest did not look up. "Good luck. What do you need the Oracle for?" 

Poseidon leaned further along the table, squeaking on the wood. "Um… The route?" 

"Probably where your friends were sailing." 

"Any dangers?" 

"Probably sirens." 

Zeus shoved Poseidon out of the way. "I meant barley!" 

The priest rubbed the bridge of his nose then glared flatly at them. "Look, gentlemen, the Oracle is not a sideshow, she is not a dancing monkey. If you don’t have a real question for her then…" 

"Pomegranates." 

Everyone looked at Hades. He had his hands cupped together and rested on the table, looking down at his entwined thumbs.

The priest ran his hand over his bald patch and blew out through his narrow nose. “Oh, it’s a pomegranate crop now? What a fertile farm you run.”

“No.” Hades kept speaking to his thumbs. “My brothers were trying to protect my ego. They knew I was ashamed of my question.”

“Your question about pomegranates?”

Hades drew in a slow, quiet breath, his fine lips parted and his angular form softened in the loose hang of his cloak and the sapphire glow of the sinking sun. He spoke without looking at them, his lids lowered, veiling the haunting blue of his eyes. “Some days ago, I was walking along a dark road. I was tired and afraid and punishingly hungry.” His palms tingled and he flexed them. “I found myself in a pomegranate orchard and to ease my hunger I plucked one of the fruits and ate its seeds.” He breathed in through his nose, as if still savouring the scent. “It was the sweetest, most perfect fruit I have ever eaten. It filled me with comfort in that dark night and I fell asleep under the tree. I dreamed of a woman tending the orchard. The most beautiful creature I have ever seen, her lips the colour of water lilies and her hair the brightness of sunset and her eyes sparkling with the oldest stars.” His voice thinned and husked a little. He cleared his throat. “When I woke, I was filled with a desperate need to find this woman, but I searched the orchard and asked in all the surrounding houses and no one could help me. I decided it must have been merely a dream, but the dream has followed me ever since.” His fingers curled. “It lives in my very flesh.” He swallowed. “And finally, seeing my sickness for it, my brothers brought me here.” He met the priest’s eyes, butterfly blue startling dusty hazel. “I need to know if the lady of the pomegranates really exists, and if she can ever be mine.”

There was a dense quiet around the table. The reed pen hovered lightly in the priest’s fingertips. 

“And if she doesn’t?” He asked levelly. “If she cannot?”

Hades raised his chin. “Then that is a prayer for a different temple.”

The priest’s lined forehead smoothed. He held Hades’ gaze for a long, weighted moment. 

He nodded and jotted something on the papyrus. 

“Go through.”

Zeus and Poseidon both gusted out huge held breaths and bundled Hades out of his chair and round the table into the regiment of columns.

“Niiiice!” Poseidon hooted. “You smooth fucker!”

Zeus shushed him urgently, planting his hands over his mouth as an attendant looked towards the noise. Poseidon smacked him away, licking his hand and cackling as Zeus recoiled and wiped his hand furiously on his cloak.

“What is wrong with you? That’s disgusting!”

Poseidon cackled louder and slung an arm around each of his brothers. “You know, just a small comment, no one was ever interviewed to get into my temple.”

Zeus shrugged him off. “Yes.” He said through his teeth. “It showed.”


	2. Pilgrimage Stage Two: Bathing in the Sacred Spring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hades, Zeus and Poseidon bathe in the Castalian Spring at Delphi and are extremely respectful of the sacred rite, obviously.

The brothers turned sharply along manicured right angles, everything neatly fitting to the plateau, a tumbling rocky drop threatening any who tried to sneak sideways out of the holy site. The path led them deeper into the embrace of the towering mountains and then down into a ravine. The cornflower sky slithered into a narrow, jagged gap overhead and citrus-green plane trees with slender, elegant trunks spiralled from the rock face and softly shaded the enclosed clearing. A peaceful quiet laced the air and the fresh, earthy scent of flowing water spilled from a large, rectangular pool in the basin of the clearing. The spring bubbled up naturally from underground, warm and life-giving, but the priests had contained it in a stone-tiled bath, water pouring in from the mouths of carved lions at the end of a small aqueduct. The water was soft turquoise and whisked white on the surface by the stream of the spouts. Stone benches draped with purple silk lined the rim of the bath. Attendants in white with purple ribbons in their hair walked around with towels and cloths and amphorae of oils. They didn’t let too many in at a time, but other pilgrims were there already. The old woman from the spot in the queue in front of them was squatting in the water at the edge of the bath, up to her neck with her hair scooped onto the grass behind and her eyes closed. Two middle aged women were chattering and tugging their dirty sandals off while they eyed a muscled young man ducking his head under the surface and reemerging, sweeping his black hair off his chiselled face. Zeus raised an eyebrow at him competitively. 

Hades turned his back a little shyly to strip. He knew that mortals were very relaxed about nudity in such spaces, but living in his rather isolated conditions had given him a few extra sensitivities about his privacy. He at least felt a little more confident in his mortal disguise. It may only really be a change of colour, but it still somewhat alienated him from his body, which was uncomfortable, but had its uses. The air brushed his skin, the hairs on his body rising to it, his muscle jutting a little tensely. He carefully folded his clothes into a small, unobtrusive stack, took the wet steps gingerly and sank into the pool in a long, slow breaststroke, letting the gentle warmth wash over him and the water take his weight with a lapping caress. Zeus dropped his clothes in a heap on top of Hades’ and slid in from the edge. Poseidon threw his clothes away in one sweep, like they were tacked together by Velcro, and bombed into the pool, casting a huge splash out from the centre that rammed the other bathers with waves. The muscle glared at him and the old woman jumped out of her wrinkly skin. Poseidon burst out from the depths with a loud, ecstatic gasp and shook out his hair like a spaniel, showering everyone.

“Sir!” Hissed a young attendant, wringing out the hem of his tunic. “This is a sacred place!”

Poseidon glanced at the scowls coming at him from all sides. “What?” He snapped. “It’s water, this is what it’s for!” 

The pilgrims tutted and went back to their contemplations, the attendant huffed and stalked back to his duties. Poseidon started to lazily back-stroke the length of the bath, slurping a mouthful as he went under a lion-head spout and jetting it from his lips. Hades floated to the side and crouched so the water concealed most of his body, the ends of his hair spreading like veins on the surface. He watched his middle brother and couldn’t help but smile slightly; king of the sea and still every little pool brought him joy. He remembered being children together, Poseidon jumping in the puddles and kicking up splashes.  _ Look after him if you’re going to go off playing.  _ His mother’s voice in his mind took him by surprise.  _ My little prince, the one who protects us all, my brave, kind Aidoneus.  _ His chest swelled and ached, coming on faster than he was prepared for. He closed his eyes as threatening heat rose behind them. He focused on the lulling sensation of the water, the ripples connecting every body in the bath to him, letting him trace their movements and their heartbeats as they nudged his flesh. The lapping was coaxing on his skin, telling him he could willingly flow away into the depths of the earth. He breathed the scents of herbs and olive oil and damp stone. 

He opened his eyes, composed again. He alighted on a young woman, just entering the ravine. She was short and plump, her eyes huge and round and bright, apple green, and her coffee brown hair coiled on top of her head. She was peeking at him from behind a curtain of leaves, dappling her with shadow. As he met her eyes her peeking turned to open staring and her lips puckered. Her head cocked to one side like a chaffinch. Hades felt his face colour and he became suddenly incredibly aware of his nakedness. He looked sharply away and sank to his chin in the turquoise. 

The girl stepped into the clearing, glanced at him once more, then seemed to accept his lack of response and went about contentedly preparing to bathe. She sat on one of the benches and drew her skirts up to her hip to start unlacing her sandals, her wheat-gold leg striking against the dark purple cloth. Hades dropped his head back to look resolutely at the sliver of sky. The warmth of the water cuddled him, gave him a strangely young, vulnerable feeling. He experimented with relaxing his muscles, letting himself slip down and trusting the pool to cradle him steadily. The natural flow of the spring and the tumult under the lion spouts and the movement of the other bathers made the cradle rock, lulled him out of the low bustle of chatter and the mumbling of water. The plane trees rustled in a slight breeze and the shadows from their leaves lacing the ground ruffled like confetti being swept by a bridal gown. Somewhere, tucked into the branches, a nightingale was singing.

“So…” 

With a clanging irritation, Hades heard Zeus’ flirt voice slink across the pool. He looked over, blinking the leak of red out of his iris, and saw Zeus only covered by water to his lower waist, leaning sideways on the edge with his hair falling rakishly over one shoulder as a female attendant washed his back. He was looking behind him with a jackal grin, trying to catch her eye as she moved an oiled cloth in soft circles between his shoulder blades,

“When do you get off?” Zeus asked in a deep drawl. “Maybe we could…” He bounced an eyebrow and poked his tongue between his teeth.

The attendant kept her gaze modestly downcast and answered demurely. “Forgive me, Sir, but it is a law of this house that I must remain virtuous.”

Zeus’s look sputtered out. “Right.”

She stood and bobbed a curtsy and walked away. Zeus narrowed his eyes and rolled to lean back, elbows on the edge to open his smooth, defined chest in a proud exhibition. “Fucking Apollo.” 

He spotted Hades diminishing into the pool and shooting disapproval at him. He smirked and swam to his side and took up his lean again. Hades’ nose filled with the scent of lavender oil. 

“So, how are things going with your mysterious orchard keeper?” He asked casually.

Hades frowned quizzically at him. “That was a lie to get us in.”

“Was it?” Zeus smiled meaningfully at him.

Hades felt a prickle on the back of his neck and pink petals scattered across his mind again. He looked stiffly ahead. “Her internship is proving productive.”

Zeus snickered.

“If you make a fucking innuendo…”

A gurgling noise and an eruption of giggles drew their attention. Poseidon was a few feet away blowing bubbles in the pool and making the two middle-aged women laugh hysterically so the water splashed around them. He bobbed back up with a gleaming smile on his face and saw his brothers looking at him. He sloshed closer. 

“What are we talking about?”

Zeus combed his fingers through his hair. “Apparently Olympus’ favourite strawberry bonbon is a very productive intern.”

Poseidon snorted. “You mean reprod-”

“Don’t!” Hades snapped.

“What?” Poseidon shrugged innocently then shouldered the side of Hades’ head. “You’re very protective, considering you’re just her boss.”

“Every woman needs protection from you two.” Hades grumbled.

“Hey.” Zeus chuckled. “Amphitrite says Poseidon’s a good little boy.”

Poseidon crossed his arms, standing in the pool so a crest of thick hair just peeked above the surface, virtually at the level of Hades’ face. Hades rolled his eyes to avert them. 

“First of all, yes she does.” Poseidon stated proudly. “And second of all,” He softened and looked back to Hades. “Bro, Amphitrite is the best, don’t you want that?”

“I don’t want your wife, Poseidon.” Hades sighed.

“What? No, Bro, you’re not her type. I mean a queen.”

Hades chewed on the side of his cheek and looked at the shadow of his body under the water. The strings of rippling light criss-crossing his flesh brought his network of lightning-white scarring out from beneath his disguise. “Queen of the Underworld is a significantly less coveted position than you seem to think.”

“There’s no such thing as a royal title that no woman wants.” Zeus said. “And you’re the richest man in existence, that has to count for something.”

“The gleam of gold offers nothing compared to the brightness of sunshine.” Hades said quietly.

Zeus huffed brusquely. “What nonsense, whoever said that?”

_ You said that.  _ Hades thought.  _ When Hera chose you. _

Poseidon watched Hades’ face fall and Zeus' nose turn up in a sneer. He batted the water with the flat of his palm and cast a wave of spitting spray across them both.

“Poseidon!”

“Ah! Why!”

“No splashing in the sacred spring!” The same attendant scolded Poseidon again. 

Poseidon shot him a furious look and turned back, sweeping his hair into the pool and rinsing a slick of oil from it. “We didn’t have all these snappy assholes in my staff.” He muttered irritably.

Zeus groaned. “Are you still being salty?”

“I’m a god of the sea.” Poseidon grinned. “What do you expect?”

*

Hades’ clothes clung to his back as his skin finished drying in the waning heat of the day. They stood in a cluster of pilgrims, all now crowned with laurel leaves to honour Apollo, which Hades and Poseidon had both vehemently resisted. They were in an open area ringed by columns topped by glittering gold statues of the muses, elegant and aloof. Before them, on a raised mound of rock, the temple shone like a solar flare, the sunset gushing bronze and flame over the pale stone. A columned cloister guarded the building like a rib cage and its walls were painted in a richly coloured, elaborate mural of chariot racing, red horses rearing and storming as yellow charioteers with streaming black hair flailed the reins, a blue sky streaking overhead. As the sunset rippled on the mural, it looked almost like it was moving. Hades’ head spun a little with the chariot wheels. 

The old woman shuffled forward and took the arm of a priest, who helped her up a wide flight of steps. She seemed to shrink to the size of a seed as she ascended. She was swallowed by the great mouth of the temple. Hades couldn’t help but imagine those great columns cracking apart at the centre and chomping her up as an hors d'oeuvres. The frieze that crowned the entrance portrayed Apollo himself, lounging on a couch and playing his lyre with a romantic, melancholic lilt to his mouth. Hades pursed his lips and looked away from it. Poseidon waited until no one was looking and flipped it off. At the foot of the stairs, two enormous, ostentatious gold statues of eagles stood sentry, their wings spread and rising as if soaring to the heavens, their beaks open as if shrieking fit to split the mountain side. They roared with the light of the sun.

Hades leaned to Poseidon with a cocked eyebrow. “They’re a bit much, aren’t they?”

A portly man with a scraggly beard overheard and puffed out his stomach indignantly. “They are to honour the ultimate power of the mighty Zeus.” He boomed.

Hades looked at Zeus with a deadpan expression.

“I made Apollo put those there.” Zeus grinned.

Hades and Poseidon exchanged a look. 

The gaggle of waiting pilgrims filled the enclosure with nervous, excited energy. The peace of the pool had stayed with them for a time, but the eagerness to see the Oracle was getting too much. It was palpable, it made nets in the air that snagged Hades every time he turned his head. He could feel it radiating off Zeus like he’d just come out of the microwave. The mortals sizzled in the red light, staining them all the colour of hewn garnet, or barbecued lobster. 

Hades looked out across the mountains again, the sun pouring molten copper and blood into the valley and turning the scarred rock striking. The vastness was unfathomable. It was nothing like the way the eerie blue of the Underworld vanished into eternity beyond the maze of austere black. It was nothing like the rolling fields of Olympus. It was a savage vastness. If the Underworld made you drift and Olympus made you sing, then this made the bottom drop out of your heart, made you rush, made you fly. He knew the pulsating inferno cupped in the valley was just Helios behind a haze, but this place made it easy to forget that. Not this temple, this nonsense, self-important monument sitting incongruous on a ledge. But this natural, raw, untameable, impossible-to-defy place. He gazed at how the greenery wrestled with the sheer, hard rock, how it overcame it, bound it, smothered it and sapped power from it and bloomed regal and wild. Rock may be the fabric of this land, but the green ruled it. The mountain surrendered willingly and in return it was brought to life.

Zeus tugged Hades’ sleeve.

Hades looked round and the sound of the pilgrims fizzing with curiosity seeped into his consciousness as he saw the old woman hobble down the steps. As she returned to the waiting area, she was swarmed by shaking mortals.

“How did it go, Auntie?”

“Did she speak to you, Auntie?”

“What was she like, Auntie?”

The old woman’s beady eyes were glassy and there was a rosy tint to her cheeks. “Now, now, all of you, please.” She croaked. “Give an old woman some space, the air is thin enough up here.”

They all stepped back, their eyes wide and staring and their fingers splayed, like they were a group of tarsiers. 

“Well, Auntie?”

The old woman rasped, clutching the top of her cane as the full reality of her experience went through her. “Wondrous visions!”

A flurry of excitement.

“Tell us! Tell us!”

A priest sidled over to the brothers, standing a little way off, caught their attention and beckoned them subtly. “You came as a group, correct?” He said formally, checking a slip of papyrus. “A dream lover?”

“So they tell me.” Poseidon beamed and winked.

Zeus stepped forward. “Oh, is that the only one he wrote down?”

The priest frowned and checked his notes. “That’s all I have.”

Zeus sucked in through his teeth. “Ah. This is awkward. We’re brothers, so we travelled together, but we did state three separate reasons for visiting.”

“Oh.” This priest was fuller in the face, more bald, and seemingly more relaxed. “What were your missing cases?”

“Harvest.” Zeus said.

“Sea voyage.” Poseidon said.

The priest flicked through his notes, double checking, and stroked his chin. “Hmmm. Well, strictly speaking I shouldn’t let you through, but your cases don’t sound like the sort of thing we’d turn away.”

“You would think.” Zeus muttered.

The priest looked up with a genial smile. “I am sure Apollo would wish us to be generous.”

“Especially to us.” Zeus flashed his teeth.

The priest chuckled quizzically, but leaned in with a friendly twinkle. “Very well, the first prophecy of the group always generates a good bit of chatter. Why don’t the missing two go through first while there’s a distraction, and then we’ll get back on track.”

“Much appreciated.” Zeus inclined his head genteelly and took a step forward. 

Poseidon stopped him. “Hold up. I’ll go first.”

Zeus stuck out his lower lip. “Why?”

“Because.” Poseidon said sternly. “I want to check out how it all works before you go in there and throw her off her game.”

“I won’t throw her off her game!”

“You will. And I respect that. But I want to see what’s happening on my turf.”

Zeus sighed and tossed his hair. “Fine. Be quick.”

“Nope.” Poseidon clapped him on the back, cuffed the priest on the shoulder, and sprang up the steps two at a time. 

He dived into the darkness of the temple.


	3. Pilgrimage Stage Three: Consulting the Oracle, Poseidon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poseidon experiences a vision from the Oracle and it's quite a treat.   
> (Some light smut)

Poseidon’s undersea eyes had no trouble adjusting to the oscillating dimness. The temple chamber was a long room, its end vanishing into darkness. More prim, fluting Doric columns supported the high roof, torches flickering on them, smoke and shadow dancing and twisting on the walls, obscuring the rich paintwork. On either side of him, running the length of the floor, were two rectangular pools. The torchlight slithered on them and writhing reflections tangled on the stone, casting mirages that dissipated if he looked directly at them. The air was sweet and misty with plumed vapours rising from thread-fine fissures in the floor. They tickled Poseidon’s nose and he sneezed and rubbed his face. He squinted through them.  _ Did I really pump this much of that stuff into the ground here? _ Beyond the tissue-paper layers of haze and flame and shade, he could just make out a tall figure.

He cleared his throat and ran his hand over his hair. “Hello?”

Silence, except for the trickle of water.

“Hi?” He called out awkwardly into the mist, his voice echoing and his words coming clunkily back to him. “This is gonna sound weird. But, I used to come here. Well, I used to be a big deal here, actually. Like, before your time.” 

Water dripped and rang, like the sound of knocking on ceramic. 

“So, confession time, I don’t so much have a prophecy question. Things are going pretty well for me, right now. And my family. I mean, my brothers could be better, but I kinda feel like there’s not a lot anyone but themselves can do about that. I mean, I try to be there… Wow, I’m rambling, those vapours are… potent.” He coughed and a little white curl escaped his lips. “It’s different here now, huh? You wouldn’t know that…” He laughed uncomfortably and it thunked around the stone. “It just seems kinda stiffer? And the people are more, I don’t know, zealous. Maybe that’s harsh. But it’s less fun, for sure.” 

Tongues of firelight lapped the columns, his head was getting fuzzy and it turned them into huge unravelling cotton bobbins. 

He jerked his head. “So, anyway. My question. It’s…” He scratched his ear and shook out his hand. “Are you OK? Is it OK here?”

The quiet yawned before him. He took a few more tentative steps into the room and strained his ears. Nothing. He sighed.  _ Oooops. That was a mistake. _ As he inhaled, the sickly sweet vapours in the room surged into his sinuses, filling his lungs and his skull. He reeled and almost lost his footing, his head spinning and his stomach floating. Then the rush settled and he felt all his muscles relax, his blood vessels dilating and his skin going warm.  _ Whoah. Maybe not a mistake. _ He rolled his shoulders and settled into the drifting, flowing sensation overtaking him. He was forgetting something. What was he forgetting?

“Was I saying something?”

The mist around him was thickening, tinging teal and turquoise and bottle green, like the bottom of the sea.

“I was asking a question…”

Shapes wisped in the vapour, spectres streaming into form.

“Oh yeah! Are you OK? I promise I really wanna know, I’m not just trying to get one up on… anybody.”

The ghosts began to shimmer. They swirled closer. Poseidon blinked furiously, but they didn’t disappear. A burst of bubbles washed up them and as it dissolved, the ghosts took form.

Poseidon’s jaw dropped.

He rubbed his eyes.

He broke into an effervescent, pearly smile.

“Mermaids!”

Three of them, to be exact. They unfurled in the dense, jade air. Their long tails glittered as if encrusted with diamonds and emeralds. Their dark hair spilled luxuriously around them. Their long, slender bodies rippled with light. The quivering shadow dipped into their belly buttons and cupped their proud chins, lay like lace over their breasts and transformed their eyes to dazzling steel. Their fanning fins were translucent and flame glimmered through them like sunset through stained glass.

Poseidon turned immediately to butter.

Three sets of full, glossy lips pouted and spread into sultry smiles, showing fine, pointed teeth.

Poseidon beamed and a pleasant shudder went down his spine.

They moved like ribbons whipped by dancers. They whirled to him and surrounded him, the scents of salt and coconut overwhelming his senses. Cool palms traced his back and he shuddered and leaned into them. A clever hand stole over his chest and under the folds of his clothes and he sucked in another hit of the vapours and pressed his chest into the touch. A long, needle fingernail drew down his cheek. He turned to it with a blush and his eyes felt too big for their sockets as he took in the sharp, shimmering face gazing into his own. She scraped her nail with a soft sting to the supple, tender skin under his chin and hooked him into a kiss. Her lips were satin and insistent. He sank into it with a rush and the world spun. When she released him, another grabbed his collar and pulled him to his other side and he was submerged again. He closed his eyes. He fought to keep them open, desperate to drink in the sight. But he was spiralling into a trance.

His cloak floated away like a flag in a breeze. Teeth grazed his throat. Hands rubbed his shoulders. There was a giggle like a bubble popping and a tugging on his hair. The feather tickle of the tip of a fin fluttered up the inside of his thigh. He caught a kiss from passing lips. He pecked a glistening cheek. He let two long fingers into his mouth and sucked them with a smile. His spine coiled as strong hands gripped his ass. He collapsed backwards and landed along broad laps, his hand stretching out and stroking velvet scales.

He was cast adrift.

His eyes fluttered open and he bit his trembling lip as three silver-eyed, unspeakably beautiful faces looked down at him, their waves of hair obscuring the ceiling. Was he facing the ceiling? Was he still inside? What was his name again?

Hands cupped his face and massaged his temples and trailed in the roots of his hair. He wriggled his shoulders and he was pinned down. He smiled. A kiss on each cheek. A kiss on his forehead. Hands stroked over his chest, his abs, his hips. Was he still wearing his tunic? He tried to tell if he could feel the air on his skin, but the vapours were so dense now they were indistinguishable from cloth. His flesh was flickering to life, so tender it felt as if he was webbed.

A hand teased just above the dark curls below his stomach. He shivered. Lips pressed to his and he stilled and sank. The hand sneaked down.

“Barnacles and brine…”

The grasp on his cock was firm and dexterous and brazen. His back arched, plunging him into it. It answered with a stern squeeze and a light slap to his balls. He shivered and chuckled. His laughter was lost in a deeper, enveloping kiss. And then he was washed in sensation, drowning. Mouths silk on his skin, hands pressing into his flesh, pulling his hair, pricking and fluttering and tickling and kneading and stroking, stroking, stroking…

He was lost at sea.

*

“What in the realms happened to you?”

Zeus gawped at Poseidon as he came stumbling back into the waiting area, buckling at the knees, his clothes rumpled, his laurel crown askew, and his expression doped and giddy.

Poseidon said nothing, he just sighed dreamily.

Zeus and Hades exchanged a confused glance.

“OK, whatever, my turn.” Zeus said briskly, batting Poseidon out of the way. “Fucking finally.”

He strode up the steps, tickling one of the blazing eagles under its beak as he passed. His body turned amber in the sunset.


	4. Pilgrimage Stage Three: Consulting the Oracle, Zeus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zeus goes into the temple to try his luck with the Oracle, but the vision he gets instead forces him to face up to much more than just an old flame.  
> (This chapter deals with themes of infidelity and pain in relationships. It alludes to myths containing rape and coercion, but does not explicitly address those themes.)

The vapours prickled in Zeus’ eyes. He wafted his hand in front of his face and kept up his stride into the room. The torches flared, darkness and light dancing a tango across the floor around his feet. He peered through the glimmer, but every time the vague shape of a figure appeared, a lash of ruby and gold dispersed it. The air smelled of something sweet, a strange, mineral sweetness, more like hard candy than the fresh, natural scent of the outside.

Zeus cocked an eyebrow. “You always were rather a one for theatrics.”

Nothing. Huh. She used to rise to stuff like that.

“Hey, Miss Mystery.” He called out, a rising excitement in his chest giving his voice a teasing rumble. “It’s me.” He turned his stride into a prowl, ducking between the columns with a sly smile. “I said I was in here to ask about harvest, what might I reap tonight?”

He thought he heard the echo of a hurried step, he pounced around a column with a sparkling grin, but no one was there. He blinked in surprise, then rolled his shoulders and began to stalk through the shadow.

“Foxy?” He pursed his lips. “Come out, come out, wherever you a…”

A woman stepped out of the darkness, sashaying towards him. She was tall and proud and buxom, her white-blonde hair twisted into two thick bunches like horns.

“Io?”

The woman smoothed her cream dress and peeked at him with a cheeky twinkle.

Zeus knew something about this was weird, but he knew it with a part of his brain that felt further away than usual. His mind was full of the prance of flame. He stepped towards her. She smiled so her nose broadened and crinkled. He smiled back. He took another step. She slipped back into the darkness.

_ She was my priestess. She was sacred to me. _

Zeus’ heart fluttered eagerly as she vanished. He brushed off the low half-voice he thought he'd heard. He tripped after the woman and followed the scuffing sound of fabric on stone, into the depths of the chamber. He skidded to the edge of one of the long, rectangular pools. His heart stopped. A woman was standing on the surface of the water. Her tangled hair fell inky black around her face and down to cover her naked body. She looked at him with huge, lagoon-blue eyes. Her shadow on the red water was like scattered feathers.

“Leda?”

Zeus’ pulse thumped. He drew back, a little nervous. But she smiled. A broad, warm, welcoming smile. He flooded with relief. He swung his arms across the pool to catch her.

_ She was married. Same as me. Same as you. _

Zeus was doused with water as the woman dropped into the pool. He reeled and gasped and fell to his knees, gripping the side of the pool and scouring the surface with his eyes, calm and still as glass again. He caught his breath and tried to shake the fuzziness from his head. He stood with a growl and pulled his chiton straight. He turned sharply from the pool and nearly tumbled backwards into it as a handsome, boyish face looked into his from only a few paces away. A young man was hovering above the floor, his body drawn defined and his short tunic ruffling as if he was being carried through the air. He was beaming brightly at Zeus from under dark copper curls.

“Ganymede?”

He stumbled forward, his pulse racing now. He reached up to catch the boy’s ankle, feet elegant and bare. The boy swooped up and dissolved in the mist.

_ Was I not royal enough for you? _

Was there someone else in here with him? He kept thinking he could hear a voice. Or was that the sound of his own thoughts?

Then a loud, thrilled squeal. “You came back!”

Zeus wheeled around and saw a small, young woman hurrying towards him with a slightly manic smile flaring on her face. Her green dress streamed behind her as she ran to him, her caramel hair, dressed with gold and pearls, cast soft shadows on her dusky, blushing skin. Zeus instinctively spread his arms for her. She flew into his embrace, lighter than he was used to, cooler. She smelled of candy. Or was that the air in here?

She planted a kiss on his cheek. “I knew you’d come for me again!”

“Of course, Semele.” Zeus smiled, pushing away the creeping sensation down his spine. He scooped her up against him and kissed her properly, pouring all his tension into her and sighing as it left his body. Her lips were giving and gentle and warm, and strangely absent. He kissed her harder, holding her tighter. Something stung his chest.

“Ah!”  He sucked in through his teeth and recoiled. He looked down and saw Semele was wearing a glittering brooch, emeralds and sapphires forming a lustrous peacock. The pin was loose, it must have pricked him. She tried to catch his eye again, but he was oddly mesmerised by the gemstone plumes and the single, midnight eye.

_ You. Gave. Her. My. Brooch. _

Zeus dropped Semele in shock. She squeaked, but as he ducked hastily to help her back up, she vanished. 

A frosty shiver coursed through him, his stomach felt hollow. He stood and glared into the mist.

“It wasn’t yours!” He snapped. “I bought it for her!”

_ You bought it for me. You gave it to her. _

“I… That’s not true.”

_ You were going to make things up. Start again. You were thinking I might wear it around the house and it would always remind you of this new promise, your for-real-this-time promise. _

“No…”

_ And then you decided you couldn’t do it. You gave up on yourself, on us, again. _

“I didn’t give up!”

_ And you found someone else to give it to, to get it out of your sight. _

“It’s not like that!”

Zeus was trembling, he was clammy and his tendons were all out of tune. He looked wildly about the empty room. And then he caught the scent. Dark and sharp and expensive, piercing the mist like an arrow. Her perfume. His mouth went sand-dry, his throat stung.

A glitter through the mist.

A sunbeam breaking through cloud.

A yellow rose blooming through grey ivy.

“Hera?”

She stood before him, head held high, hair coiled on her head like a golden serpent, skin gleaming like honey, vibrant as a cornfield at dawn, eyes hard and fierce and glorious.

His heart stopped.

_ What was it like, then? _

Her lips didn’t move, her voice came from everywhere, from inside him.

“It…” He lost his words. Her eyes mined his soul.

He didn’t find his words, they found him. “I couldn’t bear to let you down again. Whilst ever you don’t have hope, you can’t feel despair. I can’t hurt you like that. If I stayed how I was, if I didn’t make that promise, then you had the chance of finding your own happiness. Without me. I’d only get in the way.” He felt his eyes filling, burning. His heart was peeling apart. “You think I have any right to make you happy? After everything?” He took a choking breath. “Can you not just let me give what little I have to those who will throw it away? Like it deserves?”

She raised her chin a little higher, exquisitely arrogant, irresistibly cold.

“You’re…” His breath fled him. He took a shuddering gasp. “You’re perfect. You were always meant to be loved from afar.”

Tears boiled in his eyes. He clenched his jaw against them, but one escaped and seared his cheek. He flinched.

And her tears answered.

Her smooth, aloof brow creased and a surge of tears rose and overflowed from her eyes. Her captivating, beguiling, ancient eyes. They swelled with tears, became unnaturally large, shone so bright they hurt to look at. But Zeus couldn’t not look. He could never not look at her. Gods, he wished he could tear his gaze away. As the tears gushed forth and streaked down her face and neck, Zeus felt like his insides were being clawed, scooped out by a garden rake, mangled and gnawed. He clutched his middle and his broad shoulders hunched and folded like clipped wings. His hair drooped pathetically around his face. He retreated back into the strands, but still he couldn’t look away from her. Her mascara was dragged down her face with every fresh fountain of sorrow, it smeared and splashed and marred her perfection cruelly. Her beautiful mouth was contorted with silent sobs.

“Hera…”

Her tears were angry, vengeful. They were sweeping him away on wild rapids.

“Bunny…”

He couldn’t feel the floor beneath him. He couldn’t breath. Her tears were cutting into him, burning him like cigarette ash.

“I…”

She looked at him with the same raw agony as a knife wound when the blade has just been wrenched out.

“I love…”

The torchlight rushed and Hera was swallowed in fire.

*

“So? What did you see?”

Poseidon met Zeus jovially as he swept back into the waiting area. Zeus shot a thunderous scowl at him and marched past.

“We have to go.” He commanded, his back to them.

“What?” Poseidon looked concerned.

Zeus whipped round and barked like a rottweiler. “We’re leaving!”

“Why?” Poseidon was incredulous.

Zeus crossed his arms and looked away with disdain. “We just are. This was dull.”

“She blow you off?”

“Can we just get out of here?”

“It’s my turn.”

Zeus and Poseidon turned to Hades, Poseidon raising his eyebrows and Zeus looking ready to commit murder.

“What?” Zeus said through his teeth.

Hades looked at him squarely, calm but defiant. “I haven’t seen the Oracle yet, it’s my turn.”

“You didn’t even want to come!” Zeus blustered.

Hades kept his voice deadpan. “No, and then you made me, and then I had to talk your way in, and then I had to sit in a bathtub with you naked while you hit on a woman under a vow of chastity, and then I had to stand out here with this idiot talking incoherently about a mermaid orgy for the last ten minutes. I should at least get to take my turn.”

Zeus watched the scarlet smoke seep into his eldest brother’s iris. He drew himself up, but the effort of holding himself there winded him. He slumped and jutted his chin sullenly away. “Fine. Poseidon, let’s get a drink.”

“Cool.” Poseidon smiled and started his exit, then quickly turned back to Hades with a look of spiritual intensity. “They’re the  _ angels  _ of the  _ sea _ .”

Hades arched an eyebrow. Zeus grabbed Poseidon’s collar and dragged him away, the muscles in his back rigid.

Hades watched them go, then turned to look up at the temple. Stars were winking to life above it. He curled and uncurled his fist. He rubbed the back of his neck and pushed strength down into his legs. He set off up the steps.

The sun slipped behind the mountains, shrouding the land in night.

Hades reached the entrance. He put a hand on a stone column and felt out the carving with his fingertips. He let the last of the day’s warmth trickle into his body.

He took a breath.

He stepped inside.


	5. Pilgrimage Stage Three: Consulting the Oracle, Hades

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Hades' turn to visit the Oracle. She confronts him with his deepest desire and worst fear, and he confronts her in return.

Hades was engulfed in darkness. He paused and looked straight down the temple. He could generally see in the dark, but the air was hazy and it veiled his vision. He felt his body stiffen. He breathed carefully. The air was sweet. It reminded him of baklava. The tingle of light-headedness nudged the edges of his brain. He flexed his feet on the stone floor and grounded himself. He strained his ears. The sound of water lapping the sides of the two pools flanking the columned aisle was rhythmic and hypnotic. The echo of it created a sphere of soft sound around him, cushioning him, making him oddly calm.

And then his calm felt jarring, a stoic island in a tossing sea of excitement. It was like being among the pilgrims again, but more, so much more. His skin hummed with the joyful anticipation that began to crowd him on all sides. Something bumped his elbow. He looked down and a boy was hurrying past him. Or rather, the shade of a boy, his grey-blue skin and white hair giving off an eerie glimmer.

“Sorry, Mister!” The boy hollered over his shoulder as he scooted ahead.

“Where are you going?” Hades asked.

The boy shot him an amused look. “You been living under a rock?” He laughed. “It’s coronation day!”

He bounded ahead and faded into the darkness.

 _Coronation day?_ Hades frowned, a flicker of wary curiosity in his stomach. He took a step to follow the boy. Then there was a cool gust at his back and he turned and shades were surging towards and around him in a cold current, stars in their empty eyes and their steam-white smiles huge and almost uncannily happy. They hurried past him, holding hands and pulling each other eagerly, their voices echoing in harmony with the water.

“Coronation day!”

“After so long!”

“Do you think she’ll change a lot around here?”

_She?_

“Of course! She’s a new queen!”

“A new queen!”

_A new queen?_

Hades felt queasy. There was a fluttering under his skin. His mouth went dry. Petals flurried across his mind. He swept them away and took off with the crowd.

They ran through the yawning streets of the Underworld. Hades tried to carve his own path, to use the shortcuts he had mapped onto the soles of his feet, but the crowd carried him. The sleek, sharp sheen of the black towers warped and multiplied the reflections of the shades, creating a vast, pulsing crowd, stretching eternally at either side. Something flicked the pointed end of Hades’ nose. He snorted and looked up. Pink flowers were raining from the colourless sky. They teamed in the air, showered like the sparks of fireworks.

And then he was looking down on the crowd. He was standing on a high dais, as if on a cliff edge over the sea, their grey-blue bodies coming in waves far below.

“Are you ready?”

He turned and saw Hecate was stood beside him, a gold diadem perched on her chic haircut, her eyes warm in contrast to her lethally sharp suit. In her hands she held a fine, black crown. Its band was narrow, and long, black spines burst out in a halo from it, like the rays of a dark sun. It was a dreadful inversion of dawn breaking, it was darkness coming to cover the world. It absorbed the low light, gave off no glimmer, like it was a cut-out in reality, a silhouette of a real crown.

_Hecate? Was that who they’d meant? But… Why would… I thought…_

Hecate watched his face. There was an uncharacteristic naivety to her expression, the pinpoint intelligence wasn’t in her eye. His insides shifted.

_What is this? Where am I?_

Hecate nudged him. He barely felt it. He looked down at his hands. They were blue again. Hadn’t he been in his mortal guise earlier today?

Hecate’s silver voice broke that chain of wondering harshly. She took a step forward and announced to the crowd, her commanding tone silencing them, her voice amplified and resonating off the hard glass of the buildings.

“We present to you, your new queen!”

Hades’ heart bucked.

“The Dread One! Bringer of Justice! Bringer of Fruit! The Ruling Goddess!”

Hades felt his guts turn to ice and his blood turn to acid.

“Persephone! Mistress of the Underworld!”

She emerged from his right, painfully slowly. She walked along a path of dark pink petals on the dais, barefoot, bare-armed, streaks of blood staining her hands and up her forearms. Her body was a fuchsia hourglass, shimmering and shadowed. Her black gown poured around her and dragged the petals from its long, velvet train. Her lustrous, raspberry hair cascaded behind her, giving her the overwhelming look of a meteor heading straight for him. Her eyes were red as pomegranate seeds and burned with righteous rage. She was captivating, terrifying. She held his gaze and processed like a victorious warrior, like a martyr going to execution. The one bright, hot colour for miles around, she looked like a wound in the universe. She looked like she had been carved from the still-beating heart of a titan.

“No…” Hades muttered, clutching his middle as his stomach crunched. “Please, no. This is not what I make of you.”

Her dress billowed and her hair writhed.

“You don’t have to be this for me.”

Blood dripped from her fingertips.

“I would never ask this of you.”

She didn’t speak. She only kept advancing towards him, towards that dark crown.

Bile churned in his stomach and his eyes flooded. He flung himself forward, grasping for her.

“Kore! You can still escape this!”

The sky swirled crimson.

“Please! Listen to me!”

His hands closed on nothing.

He was falling.

Falling.

Falling.

Stone.

Fire.

The sound of water.

Hades’ fingernails scrabbled on the temple floor and he heaved his breath in desperately, choking on the thick, sweet vapours. He coughed purposefully, clearing his lungs and his head. The vision clung to the backs of his eyes as he blinked frantically, hoping his tears would flush it out. He dug his fists hard into his eyes until they ached. When he lowered his hands, his irises were scarlet and his jaw was set.

“What the FUCK was that, Witch!” He roared into the shadows. He flew to his feet and tore through the columns, searching furiously, his heart galloping, his blood shrieking in his ears. “Where are you!” It was a demand, not a question. Torchlight flared angrily on his body as he marched around the chamber. He could feel the veins in his temples turning to steel, his teeth turning to daggers. “Show yourself!”

A figure appeared at the far end of the chamber, shrouded in mist and shade.

“You have no idea who you are dealing with! Shadow is useless! Nothing is Unseen to me!”

The red gaze he was seeing through craved blood. He stormed toward the figure, tall and imposing as it emerged from the vapours. He coursed like a heat-seeking missile.

He burst through a curl of mist.

He halted.

The tall, impressive figure was in fact a slight, diminutive, cutely pear-shaped woman perched on a high three-legged stool, spun from gold and flanked by vases filled with laurel branches. She wore a plain, delicate white dress, and a purple veil was pinned to the knotwork of her hair and draped over her face. She was looking down under its hem into a dish of still, crystal water in her hands, apparently entirely disinterested in the man charging at her like a wildebeest.

Hades swallowed his falter, grit his teeth and dashed the dish from her hands. It flew across the room and cast a spray of water over the floor, clattering to the stone with a ringing song. The woman’s veiled face darted up, as if woken from sleep. She froze. Hades loomed over her. She may be on a high perch, but he was tall even as a mortal, and the wingspan of his shoulders was drowning her small frame in darkness.

The temple echoed with the sound of his breathing.

Slowly, with one fragile-looking hand, the woman lifted the veil and folded it back over her braids. Her face was young, far younger than Hades had been prepared for, round and olive and freckled on her cheekbones. Her eyes were rimmed heavily with kohl so their grey-gold colour stood out boldly, shocking him, a bolt into his soul.

“You should know.” She said calmly. “If your intentions are untoward, there are twelve men just outside who would tear you to shreds in an instant if I hinted at a passing interest in the colour of your blood.” Her voice was deep for her age, husky and edged, like an old wolf’s.

Hades felt the rage inside him quell, leaving a tremble under his skin. He stepped back, dropped his shoulders. “I have no ill intent.”

She sat straight, one shoulder bunched a little higher as she cocked her head and regarded him. “And I think I can already guess your blood.” Her hand traced over a gold bangle on one wrist.

Hades looked fervently into her eyes, his words came hoarse. “What were you showing me?”

The Oracle’s expression was impassive. “You know that, or else you wouldn't be doing this.”

Hades’ voice cracked. “I want to hear you say it.”

Something worse than impassivity crossed her face, was that sympathy? “I am a mirror for the gods.” She said gently. “I can show you no future. Only what you can bring about yourself.”

That stung deep, he felt it between his vertebrae. “How do I?”

“You might as well ask your reflection.”

She nodded towards the nearby end of one stretching pool. Hades followed her gaze, watched the ribbons of light on the wall. He felt the rage ghost away, leaving for a moment the exposed soreness of panic, before that left him too. His heart filled and drooped heavy. He walked softly to the pool and stood over it. He met his own eyes, twin voids, twin black holes.

The Oracle’s smokey murmur crept up behind him. “I’m sorry I can’t be an oracle for you.” She brightened a touch. “But my role is to listen to the gods. Talk. I will listen.”

Hades was silent for a long moment. When he spoke it sounded like it was coming from outside his body, accentuated by the soft echo. “She gave me food. It was perfect. Sometimes all I can think about is spending the rest of eternity eating from her table.”

A smile gave a small twist to the Oracle’s tone. “That is old magic.”

Hades sighed. He felt like he was trying to put down a burden, but that with each item he relinquished, another thudded onto his back. He spoke to his mirror image, watching the way his lips curled up and down in cycles of joy and grief. “She is the best of us. She believes so much and she tries so hard and she cares so fiercely. No one is too old or too foolish or too cruel for her to show her kindness to. She is abundance, yet she holds so much back. She retreats from me even as she advances. But she doesn’t tease. It’s like watching a paper boat drifting on a pond, navigating the lily pads and the reeds and the rocks. She is navigating me, endlessly trying to find me out, endlessly interested. Not curious, _interested_. She is a sleuth and a scientist. And a maddening mystery herself. She’s open, she’s pure, she’s powerful, she’s hungry. But she hides, she never judges, she doubts herself, and denies her desires. She is courageous. She is wildly, intensely, tortuously attractive. And she is in painfully close proximity.”

The rhythmic pat of small feet told him the Oracle had slipped from her stool and was walking towards him. Her reflection appeared in the pool beside him, meeting his mirrored eyes with hers. The veil floated behind her. She spoke in the same hushed lilt as the water. “There is an old message inscribed above one of the archways here, from before my time. It says _Know yourself._ Few who visit me live up to it. But you, and your companions, are different.” Hades tilted his chin with faint intrigue. Her eyes roved over his body in the pool, the mirrored torches like fireflies dancing around him in a grove. She continued with her voice deepening even more. “The first of you knows what he wants. The second knows what he does. And you. Your gift is especially rare.” She took a step closer. “You know what you need.”

Hades looked at the real her with a pang in his chest. “I don’t.” He said forcefully. “I get it wrong all the time. And I hurt people with those mistakes.”

She smiled again, a knowing smile that didn’t reach her penetrating eyes. “No. The mistake you make is not thinking you deserve it. And thinking that that matters.”

Hades snarled a little. “It does matter.”

Her mouth turned mocking, her voice like Merlot. “Oh? You must be a strange kind of god if you rule the mortals in your care according to what they deserve.”

“Mortals aren’t my care, they’re my job.”

She kept her eyes on him.

“In our work, deserving is irrelevant.” He explained coldly. “We deal in the inevitable, the natural. Pain, growth, death.”

“Love?”

“Some of us.”

“So, you would say that love is only the inevitable? Natural?”

Hades felt his face warm. “Love is a responsibility.”

The rims of her irises gleamed. “Then denying it is irresponsible.”

Hades’ chest tightened, he felt strapped, straight-jacketed. “I must.” He was hit by a wave of strange longing to make this mortal understand. To make someone understand. “I would weigh her down, root her in one place when she is meant for freedom.”

She shrugged. “Isn’t gold heavy? Aren’t the healthiest trees bound deep in the earth?”

“I would ask too great a sacrifice.”

“Doesn’t fruit have to fall for a sweeter blossom next year?”

The vision slashed across his mind. The blood-drenched, rage-filled, Dread Persephone. He almost choked on the shame of it. “I would corrupt her.”

“She might like that.” The Oracle’s smile was wicked now, one hand on a jutting hip and a springy coil of black hair escaping from beneath the translucent veil.

Hades clenched his teeth against the eager beat of his heart. “No.”

“You’d be surprised.”

She was playing with him, he leaned toward her with a touch of menace. “Be careful.”

The Oracle backed away half a pace and returned to her negotiating tone. “Does starlight corrupt the dark?”

Hades flushed with irritation and blew out through flared nostrils. “I see you’re a student of Socrates.”

“Not a fan?”

“These mortal philosophers are a dime a dozen. Life is short, read something special.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Poetry.”

She grinned like a fishing net around a squid. “Spoken like a lover.”

He glared at her. She held his gaze, fearless, more than fearless, at ease. Hades’ feet thrummed with the movement of water underground. His ears twitched at the persistent echoes of drips and torch crackles. The sweetness in the air was agitating. She brazened him out for as long as it amused her, then broke their eye contact. She walked with a relaxed sway to where her scrying dish lay upturned. She retrieved it, walked to the other pool nearby, scooped some water into it, and returned to her seat, reinstalling herself with a little hop like a starling. Hades watched her with a crease in his brow. When she had settled again, the dish in her lap, she turned back to him and beckoned with one nimble finger. He hesitated, then went to her. About a foot from her stool, there was a wooden stand topped with grapes and a ewer of water. He leaned his elbow on it and plucked a grape. She raised an eyebrow drily as he popped it into his mouth.

“You were supposed to come with a question.” She said.

“You were supposed to give straight answers.” He rebuffed.

She laughed and the sound pinged off the walls, ricocheted and rang. She leaned toward him like a cat nosing at cream. “I’ll try for you. In my duty as a holy woman.”

Hades prepared a barb or two, but they fizzled out on his tongue. He felt the weight in his heart again. Would it be so foolish? Just one question? In this private place? 

“Alright.” His voice croaked and he cleared his throat. “Can I… How do I… What would she…” Every attempt was strangled before it could reach his lips. He looked away with a burn under his eyes.

The Oracle’s freckles clustered as she narrowed her piercing eyes to inspect his fallen, defiant, guilty expression. “You’re asking questions you know the answer to.” She said after a while. “You know whether she feels for you, you know how to win her, you know what you can do to keep her.” She lowered her face to his, hooking his reluctant gaze back up. “You’re pretending that these are your doubts because they protect you from the question you really want to ask, and can’t bear to.”

Hades tried not to look into her dawn-on-the-sea eyes, her a-storm-is-brewing eyes. But once they had him, they were like talons.

She dragged the words from him with barely a flicker on her face. They came in a whisper, so quiet they were almost lost in the space between them.

“Would it be wrong if I had her?”

Her whisper was just as soft. “Show me.”

She was so close now that he could smell the herbs she washed her hair in, the charcoal in her kohl and the spring water in the dish. Her veil drifted forward from her braids and dusted his shoulder. Her skin was the colour of singed rose petals in the firelight, looped and bound by shadow. She stroked the back of his head, her fingers sneaking into the silk of his hair, lightly pressing on the nape of his neck. His body kindled.

She drew him into a kiss. A slow, urging, enticing kiss. Her mouth was hot and tasted of grapes and honey. Hades held himself sternly for a second, then let himself go, falling into it, closing his eyes and surrendering to her. A quiver danced on his hands and the small of his back. His tight chest relaxed and he sighed in through his nose, going dizzy with the vapours. He heard a tiny, weak moan escape him and felt her lips curl. His cheeks seared. He pushed a little harder into the kiss, drawing it out, threading it through all his tension and worry and frustration.

When she pulled from him, she sucked his lip so it flooded blackberry. His eyes opened in a prickle of surprise and he saw she was gazing into the dish in her lap, coolly studying it as if she had been for the entirety of their connection. He withdrew and hunched his shoulders, shyness and guilt pecking at him.

She rolled her eyes back up to him and they were wide and haunted, Hades felt he could plummet into them as if into the mountain valley from the highest summit. Her voice husked and rumbled, as if she had twice as many vocal cords, speaking in a pouring, poetic beat, her lips and tongue moving exaggeratedly and drawing his startled glance. “Whilst ever she is with you, she shall rule all that lives and moves and shall have the greatest rights among the deathless gods: those who defraud her and do not appease her power with offerings, reverently performing rites and paying fit gifts, shall be punished forevermore.”

Her words struck Hades at his core. He held his breath and felt them reverberate in his nerves and bones. He stared at the Oracle, afraid that if he moved or made a sound she might go into a seizure. But with a hefty breath she shut her eyes and closed her fingers on the rim of the dish and when she opened her eyes again they were back to their sardonic gentleness. She smiled out of the corner of her mouth. “Let her decide if that is wrong.”

Hades absorbed this. He searched her face. He looked at her lips, tinted burgundy. He met her eyes again and traced the ring of gold around the grey. He pushed out of his lean on the stand and stood tall and square. He put a hand to his heart and inclined his head with graceful formality. “Thank you.”

He nodded with finality and set off down the columned aisle.

A few paces away, he heard her raise her voice to him, with a sly twist. “The vapours here shorten our lives. Perhaps when I come to your kingdom you might look favourably on me.”

Hades turned back, his mouth dropping open. “You know which one I am?”

The Oracle lounged back on her stool, crossed one leg over the other and plucked a grape, rolling it on her tongue and into her cheek. “You smell of embers and copper.” She grinned. “And dog.” She plucked another grape. “The Lord of the Waters smells of high tide, and the King of All smells of the air just before a storm.” She mimicked his formal incline of the head. “I am honoured by your visit, Aidoneus.”

Hades stilled. 

The drip, drip, drip of water chimed on the stone.

“I don’t go by that name.”

He turned on his heel and strode from the temple.

The Oracle vanished behind the mist.

*

“Finally!” Zeus slurred, waving a half-empty amphorae at Hades while Poseidon raised a cup genially at him. 

Hades was approaching them in a feasting area a little further down the rise. 

Zeus’ hair was in disarray and his mouth was in a fixed sulk. “Can we go now?”

Hades didn’t look at his brothers. He looked up to the stars, the stars corrupting the dark. Or doing something else to it. He pulled the laurel crown from his head and tossed it into the grass. “We can go.”

“At last!” Zeus began to stalk away like a cockerel who’d just been nipped by a hen. 

Poseidon looked carefully at Hades. “Everything OK?”

Hades pulled his gaze from the constellations and their interwoven dances. “Fine.” He said.

Poseidon looked unconvinced, but he nodded. They set off down the path after their brother. Zeus soon reached a rocky part of the incline and started to lose his footing, swigging defiantly from the amphorae as his balance became increasingly compromised. Poseidon laughed and trotted to catch up, slinging Zeus’ free arm over his shoulder and steadying him. Zeus leaned heavily and hiccuped into his face, a gas-cloud of wine buffeting him.

“Ha, gross!” Poseidon pushed at Zeus’ face with his palm. He called over his shoulder. “Hey Big Brother, wanna give me a… hand?” He searched the path behind them, his eyes combing the bushes and the dimples in the mountainside. He gave a puzzled look up to the sky.

Hades had disappeared.


	6. Pilgrimage Stage Four: Living with the Prophecy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The brothers return home from Delphi. Poseidon cuddles, Zeus thinks, Hades makes a step.

Poseidon stumbled around his dark bedroom, getting tangled in his cloak and tunic as he tried to strip for bed. He threw them off and was rushed with cold. He scurried into the bed and burrowed under the covers, finding Amphitrite’s body and snuggling to it, breathing in her coconut shampoo.

She reached round behind her and patted his cheek. “Late.”

“Oh, yeah.” He mumbled, hooking her into the cage of his arms and legs. “You will not believe the dramas I have to tell you about in the morning.”

“I love drama.” She wriggled closer against him.

“I know, Angel Fish.”

She rolled back a little so her shoulder tucked under his chin. He pressed his lips to it, tracing the spiral markings on her skin.

“I love you.” He murmured.

Amphitrite chuckled, interlacing their fingers and giving her ass a taunting tilt into his groin. “Sucker.”

*

Zeus reclined on his long couch in one of the various grand sitting rooms of his house. He rested back with his forearm behind his head and twizzled his hair around his index finger. He scrolled through his recently visited web pages on his phone. He clucked his tongue in a performance of nonchalance for an audience of only himself. He hadn’t bothered to turn the lamps on. His eyes were dizzy from the strange blazes of fire and sunset. He wanted to be in the dark.

He persuaded himself he hadn’t been looking for the page, that it had just popped up as he flicked his thumb up and down.

The glittering peacock brooch filled his phone screen, the backlight saturating the colours.

He sucked on his teeth.

His thumb drifted back and forth over two large black buttons below it.

_ Complete purchase. Delete from basket. _

He tapped the screen.

*

Hades rested his shoulder on his bedroom window and looked out to the great labyrinth of black and butane blue. His body was his again, his cerulean skin exposed to the welcoming cool of the Underworld and soothed by his silk robe. The streets were empty, the silence was so all-consuming that it became embarrassing that he had fallen for a vision of bustling crowds only hours before.

_ Whilst ever she is with you, she shall rule all that lives and moves and shall have the greatest rights among the deathless gods. _

The image of the Dread Queen bloomed like hibiscus in his mind.  _ His  _ Dread Queen? The idea that he might turn her against herself was like an electric whisk in his bone marrow, it gouged and rattled him. But, hadn’t she been beautiful? He’d not let himself think it until now. Gods, she’d been beautiful. Wasn’t she always?

Butterflies battered the inner walls of his stomach and his rib cage.

He raised his glass to his lips and doused them in whiskey.

He lifted his phone in a shaking hand.

He dialled a number.

It rang for a truly brutal length of time. He scripted and re-scripted his voicemail over and over.

“Hey.”

_ Fuck, she answered. _ His tongue swelled in his mouth, his throat closed.

“This is a sweet surprise.” Her voice was soft, kind.

He tried to speak. His voice dissolved in the back of his mouth.

“Hades?” A cute little reprimand in her tone. “Is this a butt dial?”

A chuckle bobbed in his chest and it loosened his larynx. “Good evening, Little Goddess.” He smiled around the words.

“Hi.” There was a slight crackle in the receiver, reminding him of how far away she was on Olympus. A relief and an agony in one.

“Sorry to call out of the blue.” He said awkwardly.

“Well, technically everything that comes from your mouth is out of the  _ blue _ .” She giggled, then audibly winced at herself. He could hear her pulling that face. “Get it?” She prodded with an embarrassed squeak.

He was suddenly smiling so broad it ached in his cheeks.

She let out a shy, concerned sound that pranged his heartstrings. “It’s pretty late, is everything OK?”

He cleared his throat. “Yeah. Everything is fine. Did I wake you?”

“No.”

“Good.”

“You’re still not sleeping, then?”

“Actually, I think I just woke up.”

He heard her falter, heard that tiny intake of breath, almost felt it on the skin of his neck. 

He closed his eyes. He drew a breath in through his nose, whiskey and the memory of baklava. He looked back out to the soaring emptiness of his kingdom. “Persephone.” He steeled himself, he spoke softer than feathers. “I had a dream tonight. About you.”

Another intake of breath and then a few steadying inhales and exhales. He could see the way her body moved with it.

He swallowed once more and pushed himself past the point of no return. As if he hadn’t passed that days ago. “Can I tell you about it?”

She fell quiet, deeply, frighteningly quiet. Then she spoke again and she was all strength and intrigue and tenderness.

“Yes, Hades.” She said, her smile wending its way down the connection. “Tell me about your dreams.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you again to @chinchela_art (Instagram and Patreon) and her wonderful community of patrons for the "Three Kings" prompt - go look at her awesome art!
> 
> The prophecy the Oracle gives to Hades is from the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, I nicked it off the Instagram for [PomegraNet](https://www.loreolympians.com/), a fan site I highly recommend!
> 
> I have taken a LOT of liberties with Delphi in this fic, please assume it's all carefully thought out artistic decisions and definitely not that I wrote this off the back of Wikipedia and Google images.


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